Kings County Biographies


This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm



 
C. U. HENDERSON
 
a rancher two miles north of Grangeville, was born in the Fond du Lac country, 
Wisconsin, in 1856.  His father, George M. Henderson, a native of Scotland, was 
the eldest son and direct heir to the Lord Udney estate in Aberdeenshire.  He 
left home at an early age and through legal sources the property was divested.  
The mother of our subject, Jane (Merrill) Henderson, was a native of Canton, 
Connecticut.  Through religious influences she was led to believe that her 
mission in life lay in converting the Indians upon the frontier, and to that end 
she left her luxurious home (then in New York City) and as a missionary settled 
in Minnesota. While there she met Mr. Henderson, whom she subsequently married, 
after which they settled in Wisconsin, where he followed a mercantile life.  
Selah Merrill, a brother of Mrs. Henderson, fills the position of United States 
Minister at Jerusalem.  He was first appointed under President Garfield, and 
later under President Harrison.  He is an eminent archaeologist, and was 
assigned to that locality the better to pursue his scientific investigations.
            In the youth of C. U. Henderson his parents moved to Peru, Nebraska, 
where his father followed a mercantile life, and where he improved the 
educational advantages offered by the State Normal School.  In 1871 the father 
was called to his eternal home.  After settling the estate Mrs. Henderson, with 
her three children, C. U., Minnie and Grace, came to California and settled at 
Oakland.  The daughters were educated at Mills College in Alameda County, and 
our subject found employment in the office of the Central Pacific Railroad, now 
the Southern Pacific system.  He remained with them for a period of fourteen 
years, occupying positions of trust along their routes, in the clerical 
department, where were required men of ability and practical knowledge of 
railroad work.  He continued in that work until 1886, when he resigned his 
position, and with his wife settled upon her ranch of 640 acres, two miles north 
of Grangeville, which was a landed interest inherited from her father�s estate.  
Here they built their pleasant cottage home, and engaged in wheat farming.  The 
land was then in a wild condition, and subject to cultivation only through great 
expense in breaking up, and an additional expense of canals and ditches for 
irrigation.  In the spring of 1888 Mr. Henderson set forty acres to vines, and 
has since increased his vineyard to 100 acres, and is also preparing to plant 
100 acres to stone fruits, for which purpose his land is especially adapted.  In 
the fall of 1890 he sold 180 acres of the ranch to J. C. Kimble, of Oakland, 
who, having traveled through all the coast valleys looking for prune land, 
selected this locality as the most desirable.
            Mr. Henderson was married in Stockton, in 1881, to Miss Rose 
Sutherland, a daughter of John Sutherland, a California pioneer of 1850.  He was 
also a prominent stockman and pioneer of the Mussel Slough District, bordering 
the King�s river, where he secured 14,000 acres of land, and owned 20,000 head 
of cattle, and 5,000 horses, in addition to the other large interests in this 
State and Texas.  Mr. Henderson is a member of the K. of P. of Turlock, 
Stanislaus County, and of Hanford Lodge, F. & A.M.  He is now devoting his life 
and energies to the development of his ranch and the improvement of his 
extensive fruit interests.
 
Memorial and Biographical History of the counties of Fresno, Tulare and Kern, 
California
Chicago, The Lewis Publishing Company, 1892  p. 640-641
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler